


Road, Wind, Cactus

by NeverwinterThistle



Category: Original Work
Genre: Coffee Shops, F/F, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-16 05:46:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13629903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/pseuds/NeverwinterThistle
Summary: There is a long highway that stretches through a desert with many names, and somewhere on it sits a coffee shop.A story about a coffee shop that sometimes has milk and often has sand, where the baking is fresh, the soup's meat is real, the waitress is part metal and radiation storms haven't been seen for decades.Star makes drinks. Ruger makes promises. And between them, they have a dream.





	Road, Wind, Cactus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Masu_Trout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/gifts).



> You asked for "Post-apoc slice-of-life" in a coffee-shop setting, and it was all I could think of for days. I hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed reading the ideas you came up with!

There is a long highway that stretches through a desert with many names, and somewhere on it sits a coffee shop.

It has no name of its own. Too small for that, and too poorly guarded: with a name comes a sense of worth, of wealth, of rich pickings for the reckless. It is not a city, or even a township. It sits alone on the edge of cracked asphalt, neon sign dark like a dormant volcano, an open secret to caravans and mercenaries, medics, missionaries, seasonal workers who travel with the fragile crops. The scrub-strewn desert stretches around it in all directions. Like an island, it sits in a sea of sand. No one remembers who opened it.

Star runs the place these days. Even she doesn’t know where it comes from; her parents bought it cheap from an owner desperate to leave, and died six months later to bandits looking for cash. She’s had the place for a decade now. There have been bandits since; none of them trouble her long.

There is value in cultivating relationships, Star has found. The local homesteads, farmers, mechanics. The travellers. The mercs who come by frequently, as jobs lead them up and down the wind-bitten desert road.

“No milk today,” Wal tells her, passing a crate of stunted lemons through the door. “Tivo says she’s having problems with the cows. Going to need to send for a vet, she thinks, and I guess she can afford it.”

“Cost a lot to get one out here,” Star comments.

“She can afford it,” Wal repeats. “That’s what cows’ll do for you. If I could just get my hands on a couple, me and Gilly would be set for life. We’d let you have the milk at discount, too. Imagine.”

“My imagination’s not that good.”

“Yeah, Gilly says the same. Say, how’d that ginger slice of hers go down? She was asking.”

“Popular.” Star accepts sacks of pot barley, wizened onions and peas. Hot soups are always welcome among travellers, and one of the homestead owners butchered a beast yesterday. He’ll stop by in an hour or so and pay off part of his tab with a shin and leg.  There are still a handful of beans left over from a merchant three days ago. Several of farmer Seph’s bell peppers sitting on a shelf. That’s a filling meal with flatbread, and it’s a meat dish, so she’ll charge twice as much. Keeps for a while, too. Good value. She’s pleased.

“Popular, was it? I’ll let her know, she was worried they might not like it. New crop, you know how it is.”

She does know. But Gillette will worry at the drop of a hat, and nothing she’s made has ever failed to sell. Once again, Star wonders if she should be paying the woman more; it saves her a lot of trouble not having to make most things herself, and she wouldn’t do it half as well as Gillette, who actually manages to make things look appealing, whatever their contents.

Better not, she decides. If Gillette wants a raise, she can ask for one. Rules of the desert.

“If you can get it to flourish, we’d sell plenty,” Star says. “It’s something different. Good in sweets, probably good in stir fries. Could be pickled, maybe. One of my visiting medics said she’d had it in tea before. It just depends on whether there’s a steady supply.”

“Which of us does the growing here?” Wal retorts. “I’ll get that ugly root flourishing, you wait.”

“What’s the baking today?”

“Uh, muffins, looks like.” Wal peers at his wife’s charcoal script on the crate. “Sweet. Carrot, more of that ginger, the last of the dried coconut. Shit, I hope Bechtel can get some more in soon. We tried our own for years, they just die in winter. Too cold. But he says it’s hard to ship from Hawaii if the wind turns the radiation clouds the wrong way, and Florida is risky. Too many bandits. Here’s your potatoes.”

“Thanks. You want payment now or at the end of the week?”

Wal hands over the potato sack. “Heard it might be looking a bit rough out there these last few days,” he tells her seriously. Unusual for him, but if he’s worried, there’s probably a reason for it. Star meets the mercs and medics, the caravans and their armed guards. Wal heads out to farmers’ markets, small-town growers and homestead producers, the ones without the firepower. The ones who notice danger first. The ones who die to it first.

“Bandits?”

“Hard to say. Friend of mine had a beast torn up, could have been anything. Should have been safe though, so.”

“Got it. Payment now.”

“Might be best,” Wal says. “I just don’t like to think of you making the trek to ours on your own. Gillette would worry herself sick.”

“Tell Gillette I’m not that stupid.” Star fetches notes and coins from the rusting safe she keeps by her bed. And as much as she trust Wal, she still checks over her shoulder to make sure he hasn’t followed her down into the bunker. The safe has all her savings. Ruger’s too. Can’t be too careful. They might be needing the money soon.

She passes payment into Wal’s ravaged hands. “If it’s looking rough out on the sand, I’ll hire mercs for a couple of hours. Ruger, when she comes by. Pay her in beer and some these muffins. She’ll love it.”

“Yeah? She back soon?”

“Today. Tomorrow at the latest.”

“Good for you. Tell her I said hello, will you?”

Wal leaves, and Star gets ready for the day’s first customers.

She never really closes up. Sleeps in the underground bunker, her head and toes pressed up against opposite walls, braining herself on concrete when she turns too fast. She should lock herself in, but it’s such a hassle. People stop by at all hours of the night, and she’d rather hear them knocking than not. An empty shop is ripe for robbing. Sleep is for the gullible.

Still, she sweeps the cracked tile floors, sand swirling around her broom. Wipes down the seats and tables, the counter, the _OPEN!_ sign she never changes. Makes dough, leaves it to rise. Checks her cups and glasses are moderately clean. She needs more of both, and badly. Plates as well. But glass and ceramic work are expensive, and it’s a rare traveller that’ll bring them this way. She’ll need to head south-west, or up north to the cities, or place an order with someone she trusts who happens to be going that way. An expensive risk. Her least favourite kind.

Outside, the wind is picking up, a thin sugar-like layer of sand building back up on the tables. The sun is rising. On the highway horizon, shapes are starting to form. Star stops to squint at them; hazy black shadows on a swooping blue horizon. Friendly, probably. Unless they’re not. It’s always a gamble.

Apple shows up for the start of her shift, and Star leaves her trying to sweep the sand back out where it belongs. Tricky without shutters to keep it out. They have some, but the storm two days back tore nails free and sent wooden planks flying, so they’re lying out back until Star has time to repair them. Besides, they block out the sun, and she resents lighting candles in daytime.

She suspects there would have been glass in the windows, once upon a time. It’s almost impossible to imagine possessing that kind of wealth.

Out back, Star follows the steps down into the bunker, concrete rising up around her ears. From under her bed, she hauls out her sacks of coffee beans, her small metal hand-grinder, wax packets of dried tea leaves, the keys to her water purifiers. The only way they could be stolen from her would be if someone killed her first. Which is fine; she can’t imagine she’ll mind the theft much, if it comes to that. And in the meantime she’ll continue to sleep on top of her livelihood.

Apple loads their muffins into the open display cases, draping cheesecloth over top to keep the insects and sand out. She does it well, for a new girl. Almost a week on the job. She learns fast, though, and that’s a blessing. Staff come and go, and Star had to cope on her own for almost a month after Mattel upped and left. Not that she can blame him. Not many people want to make their lives on the windswept desert road. Matt found a merc who offered him adventure, and off he went, another wavering shadow against the too-blue horizon. Apple came after. She won’t stay long.

In the kitchen, Star makes soup. The meat arrives. She swaps it for three-quarters of a tab cancelled, plus the rest in exchange for a few pounds of haunch. It’s a good deal. Barley swells her soup, and she fills it further with onion, peas, a couple of shrivelled carrots, the capsicums, wild desert arugula, and a pinch of Sephora’s expensive paprika, two of precious salt. In the fenced-off back of the café, the coal pit is hot, the sand warm to touch. Ready for flatbreads. At a bench nearby, Apple starts rolling dough.

“Soup on the menu today,” Star says.

It’s unnecessary; the kitchen is starting to radiate the smell and the heat of the cook fire. But after half a dozen incompetent staff in the space of several years, Star is accustomed to stating the obvious. It’s not like Apple seems to mind much. Doesn’t seem to say anything at all, if she can avoid it. Fair enough. Star can talk for them both.

“It’s a package deal, soup and flatbread. Two times normal price, no discounts. If they want to haggle they can go somewhere else. This is fresh meat. Tell them.”

Apple rolls dough, nods, keeps rolling. There is sand in her short hair and under her fingernails. She walks to work from wherever she lives (and Star hopes it isn’t a tent somewhere, but she’s not going to ask. It’s none of her business anyway) and she won’t have eaten anything today. Star takes two of the dough circles and carries them out to the fire pit, where she fans her coals out with a shovel. She covers the dough quick in hot sand and coal, waiting while each portion blisters and bubbles. Breakfast is served with sweet fig jam, eaten hot as it burns their fingers. The meagre butter is saved for customers.

A lone merchant is the first customer of the day; he ties his tired horse outside and staggers through the door, weighted down by his bags. No guards, no friends. He can’t afford to leave them outside.

Most of his stock is junk, but Star trades a day’s water and some homemade jerky for twelve metal nails and, incredibly, a slightly chipped porcelain mug. She wonders if he knows its value out here. Not that it matters, if he’s desperate. The road is long and lonely, and it’s a full day’s travel to the next proper establishment. Without her, he’d be relying on finding a water or food seller. Never a wise risk to take. She gives him his rations and waves as he leaves, dragging his feet. She doubts she’ll see him again.

The soup goes down well. A group of three medics and their guards stop by and make a game of counting the vegetables it contains. It’s a few minutes of fun between flatbread-baking; Star hands out a couple of dried yucca fruits to the winner, who spots the desert arugula. She’s not one for freebies, usually. But she’s feeling soft towards medics right now, and it can’t hurt to build up some karma among them. She thinks of Toshi and her caravan last week. Doctors on mercy missions, helping the sick, easing the dying, rehoming children in need. Due to return in two weeks, and Toshi will need an answer from her. It feels like good luck, to be kind to medics.

Ruger arrives around midday. Star sees her coming and unconsciously dusts crumbs from her shirt, her neck kerchief. She catches herself part way through tidying her sand-strewn hair, and laughs. She can’t remember when she started minding these things.

Ruger comes from soldier stock, her guns an extension of self. She is much like the rest of the mercs that pass through: enjoys card games, liquor, a woman to sit in her lap. Her skin and short brown hair smell of leather and campfire smoke. She waxes lyrical about the bullet factory down south, which she goes to when she has the cash and lines her pockets with little lead kisses. She is sometimes coarse and often scowling; she always thanks Star for the coffee.

The latter sets her apart from her cohorts. And while Star serves mercs on a daily basis (trekking mud and horseshit all over her floors, swearing and swaggering, flashing their weapons), she finds herself looking up when they enter her café, just in case. It’s not always Ruger. But often it is. Those are the best days.

Ruger stops at the door, muttering something to the people beside her. Star can’t hear the conversation; incredulous looks are exchanged, eyes are rolled, and then she watches, mildly baffled, as all five take turns at scraping their boots before entering.

 _That’s one for the history books_ , she thinks as they barge through the door and, for once, keep her floors clean. Sort of.

“You people are so strange,” she tells them. “Every time I think I get the whole merc thing, you go and do something different. Drives me crazy.”

Marlboro is a heavyset man, his beard as straggly as his clothes, his fingertips yellow-stained. Star vaguely remembers being afraid when he first started buying from her. Not her fault; he _towers_. “Don’t look at me,” he mutters, jerking a thumb at Ruger. “This one wants to be a princess today.”

“Fuck off,” Ruger says. “Can’t you see the lady’s waiting to take your order? You want her to stand around all day while you try to find some brain cells under all that beard? They should give you a seat,” she says to Star. “It’s hard being on your feet all day.”

“What, like us?” Macy is a thin, sharp woman, in word and appearance. Her nose could slice butter, and her tongue carves slabs from people who challenge her. She pushes to the front of the queue and makes her order. _Large black coffee, triple shot; carrot cake with a scraping of butter_.

“Someone’s feeling rich,” Marlboro mutters at that last. Macy ignores him. She hands over coins and notes, dirty and worn, and Star points to the tables.

“We’ll bring it right out to you,” she recites. Macy doesn’t thank her. This is standard.

Mercs run in groups and she knows this one well; they often stop by, during work trips or after, flush with cash or not. They’re frequent enough that she’d let them open a tab if they asked, but her policy is to wait until they do. She’s not offering freebies. If they want her to trust them, she asks that they swallow their pride.

Marlboro wants a beer with his soup and flatbread; Mac agrees on the beer, but takes a slice of stodgy four-day-old meatloaf with it, and a plate of potato wedges baked on hot coal with Seph’s paprika and an expensive pinch of salt; Fox orders weak lemonade and the muffin of the day.

“Coffee, please,” says Ruger at the counter. She always sounds a little unsure of the second part, as if the word is unfamiliar, dusted off like the family china brought out at a wake.

“Okay,” says Star. “We do this every time, but…okay. ‘How do you want your coffee?’”

Ruger shrugs. “Dealer’s choice. Anything you suggest is fine with me.” She clearly means to sound offhand, as she always does, but she glances at Star’s face a few too many times to pull it off. It’s been like that from the beginning; for the longest time, Star wondered if she was just too awkward to pull off bravado. She was wrong, as it turns out. Ruger just likes looking at her.

“Well,” Star says. “We don’t have milk today, so your options are straight-up espresso, espresso with water, water without espresso, or this very old raspberry cordial some ranger traded me yesterday. Which I wouldn’t recommend. It looks suspicious.”

“Why did you take it?”

“It’s purple,” Star says. “I like purple. And anyway, he was out of water. Didn’t want charity, didn’t have any cash. So. Mine now.”

“You like purple,” Ruger repeats slowly. “I’ll remember that.” There is a promise in her tone.

Star shrugs. “Can if you want. How about I get you a double shot, and I’ll see if we have any of the slice left over from yesterday. It was good. Gillette tried something new.”

“Sure. Thank you.”

“Freaks me out every time you say that. Never stop.”

Ruger takes a barstool at the counter while Star makes coffee. The rest of her group are over by the open window; prime seats that everyone wants, for the view they get of the outside. It’s always best to watch the horizon, even on a bright, hot day like this. There are bad things on the road. Bad things in the plains, and on the rolling desert hills. Bandits, wildlife, addicts, the irradiated. An early warning is worth sand in the food. The mercs sit by the window and watch. Star stands at her counter and doesn’t tell them she’s glad of the guards.

Apple takes the orders out to the table, balancing four plates and a tray of drinks on her arms. She might be new to the job, but she doesn’t so much as wobble, and Star is watching closely. She suspects at least one of the woman’s arms might be metal and plastic skin-substitute; there have been a few too many incidents involving hot plates and bare hands. Not that it matters. Whatever Apple’s old life was, she’s left it long behind her.

“Here,” Star says, bringing Ruger her coffee and sticky mostly-ginger slice. “The house special.”

“Thank you.”

“Careful. I’ll start getting used to that, and then you’ll ruin me for everyone else.”

“That’s the plan,” Ruger says, and lifts her coffee. “Is it working?”

“Could be.” Star gets herself a cup of water from the tank under the counter. She wouldn’t normally eat or drink in front of customers, but regulars come with their own set of rules, and Ruger is easy to be with. She’s never wanted the traditional customer service spiel. She asks if Star is getting enough water, if she’s had breakfast yet, if there have been any bandit problems since the last time she stopped in. It’s nice, in a way. Star finds it comforting to know that if she gets mauled on her way home one night, someone will miss her.

“So how were things down south?” she asks. “You were bodyguarding medics, right? Risky.”

“Yeah, we got hit a few times. Nothing I couldn’t handle.” Ruger is often closemouthed about her work and the risks involved. Star isn’t surprised to find the details sparse. She changes the topic quickly.

“Right. How was the south? Warmer than here?”

Ruger shrugs. “I hate the coffee down there. They put mud in it.”

“So do we.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

“Oh no. Definitely none of that, I have _some_ standards.”

“But it’s not the same,” Ruger says. She leans on the bar, gesturing wildly at her coffee. “Okay, sure, maybe you have to…bulk up the supply a bit, make it last longer. I’ve done caravan guard work, I get it. You take what comes to you. But I’m telling you, it’s not the same. Swear on my guns. Yours is better.”

“The secret ingredient is love,” Star says seriously. “Swear on my…coffee grinder. That, and people have been travelling for days by the time they get here. Even hot mud tastes good after that long on the road.”

“No arguments here.”                  

Banter done, they settle into their positions, Ruger leaning on one side of the bar, Star on the other. The mercs by the window glance their way and laugh; Star ignores the audience. Ruger is home, alive and, this time, unharmed. Star takes her hand.

“Welcome back,” she says simply.

Ruger squeezes her hand. “Easy to find my way, with a star to guide me.” This time, they both laugh at the no-doubt well-practiced line. Stolen from a book or a chance encounter; there’s no way it’s original. Effective nonetheless. Star is touched.

“It was quiet without you,” she says. “You didn’t miss much.”

“New girl?” Ruger asks, nodding at Apple as she checks on the mercs and their orders. “She wasn’t here last time.”

“Started last week, yeah.”

“Good. I was worrying about leaving you here on your own. Should have stayed longer.”

“I appreciated the help,” Star says. “Seriously. I know your group must have got impatient with you; not much money in hunting rabid animals around here. But it helps.”

“I thought about telling them to go on without me,” Ruger admits. “Maybe picking me back up when they stopped by next, if you’d found someone else to work with you by then. But-”

“I wouldn’t have let you. I know what mercs are like; you get left behind, behind is where you _stay_.”

“I’m a merc. You think I’m like that?”

“No,” Star says. “But you’re different.”

“Hope so.” Ruger releases her hand, thumb stroking gently over her knuckles as she does. “So what’s her name? New girl?”

“Apple.”

“Pretty.”

“Common as the dirt I put in your coffee,” says Star, who would in fact rather sit naked in the middle of a radiation storm than adulterate her coffee with _dirt_ , but will never admit this. “Seriously. I know…eight? Maybe nine Apples. I bet you’ve met more, they’re everywhere.”

“It’s just the area. People trying to maintain our culture, trying not to forget the things our ancestors were proud of.  Head further out east and every guy you meet is called Folgers or whatever. There’s nothing new out there. People just want to remember.”

“Remember _what_ , though?” argues Star. “Names don’t equal remembering if we have no idea what they mean. Why is it Apple, and not Peach, or Apricot? We’re missing half the story.”

“So that’s one to scratch off the ‘future kid names’ list,” Ruger says. “Definitely no Apples.” She’s being literal; she does in fact have a list with her, and pulls it out of an inside coat pocket. Star hands over a stub of charcoal. She watches as _Apple_ is struck from the list. It’s the latest in a long line of erasure. The list is getting tatty, grubby with smears of charcoal and drips of coffee or tea or whatever drinks Star was serving during that particular shortage. She could track several years’ worth of struggle through the stains on Ruger’s list. On the whole, she would prefer not to.

“So what’s new?” Star asks, peering at Ruger’s blocky handwriting. “Find me anything good from down south?”

Ruger trails the charcoal down her list. “I met a Hershey on the border to Nevada,” she says. “That’s not bad, for a boy. But the guy also tried to rob me, so I shot-uh. I stopped him. Maybe not.” Unbidden, she crosses the name off. Star leans closer to see; she inhales the woodsmoke and sand on Ruger’s skin, the smells of sun and horizon. She’s never been much of a traveller herself; never felt the call of the hot, lonely asphalt, or pictured road signs in the cloud formations above her. She’s happy where she is. But sometimes, on slow days in the café, poring over Ruger’s list, she wonders.

“What’s this?” she asks, touching a word with her finger. “How do you even say it?”

“Uh. Good question. I got her to spell it out for me, but she says she never uses her full name. Just goes by _NV,_ which sounds like _envy_ , so…yeah, maybe not. I’m pretty sure she hated it anyway.”

“Imagine,” Star says, “if we just tossed the list and made our own names up. How hard can it be? What if I just stepped outside, turned around three times, and picked a name based on the first thing I see?”

Ruger turns to look out the door. “Sand,” she says thoughtfully. “Sky, clouds, café, uh, cactus, cactus, cactus. More sand. Road. Wind. Cactus. Horses?”

“You’re intentionally missing my point,” Star says. “Fine. Keep collecting. You never know, I might see something I like.” It’s an old argument.

“Will do.” Ruger folds the paper along its creases, imprinted like valleys in the paper. She tucks it carefully into her pocket. Hesitates. “I found an orphanage in a city down south,” she says quietly. “Thought about going in, just…to see. Chickened out in the end. But it didn’t matter anyway, Macy got sick of me staring at it and went to talk to reception for me, and she says it looked really nasty. Too pretty, too much spice in the air. So it was probably more of a…yeah. Anyway, I’ll keep looking. And I reported that place to the local militia.”

Another dead end. They should be used to this by now; Ruger looks in every city and settlement she finds, but children are hard to come by. Orphans especially. They get snapped up fast by people who can’t have their own, which is…lots. Or they get sold at markets. Star hopes she never gets that desperate.

“I talked to Toshi,” she says. “She’s new, she’s a medic. Works for one of the larger charities. She thinks we’re better off going through her people, the ones who get called to war zones and bandit wrecks. They find survivors. And if they meet people on the road who are trustworthy and volunteer, they send the kids to them. She says she’ll pass our names on if we’re sure. But we have to be sure.”

“Are we?”

“Are _you_?” Star counters. “It’s one thing to talk about the future, but if we say yes to Toshi it could be next year. This year. Next _month_. You’d have to leave the road. Spend those savings you keep getting me to store, help me build a settlement, get used to having a home. I mean, you could still travel, but you’d have to come home.”

“I already do,” Ruger says. “That’s…what I’m doing here. It’s what I always do. Thought you’d realised that. I’m not orphan-hunting for fun.”

It is, Star thinks, very rare for them to discuss an actual serious topic. They joke about names and Star’s attempts to learn farming, and they don’t talk about Ruger’s work. They joke and tease and fuck each other senseless in Star’s too-small bunker room, or in the shade of the peach trees after their picnics. They’re together, and then Ruger leaves and Star stays behind, and they miss each other, but never change. They treat their future like a game; it’s easier than saying, _yes, I want this. I want it so badly I ache_. There is no better way to have something taken from you than admitting that it has value.

But they can’t keep doing this forever.

“You know that place over the hill we take picnics to? The one with the trees.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s nice, looks like someone was trying to grow there.”

“It’s unclaimed land,” Star says. “I’ve been asking around, nobody owns it. They all thought _I_ did. Maybe I do; I don’t know what my parents bought with the shop. So I went and put some markers down a few days ago, and told the neighbours I was taking it. They don’t mind. They said I could take more, if I could defend it, but I’m not so sure yet. Going to need dogs. And a wife with lots of guns.”

Ruger nods slowly. “Lucky for you I’ve been working on my dowry,” she says. “ _Lots_ of guns, you say? I might be ready to make an offer.”

“I have greenery when we’re ready,” Star says. “I’ve been saving up credit with some of the farmers, for repayment in seeds and saplings. Could put some of that credit towards hours of work, too, if we want. They’d help us with building.”

“My group would, too. Any time you want to start. They’ll complain, but that’s all talk.”

The ground is good in this area; it’s the reason Star’s parents first made the trip from their settlement up north, where sickness in the soil was killing their crops, their neighbours, their future. Radiation storms are rare in this desert. Better to chew through sand in the morning flatbread than wait while the cancers expand and envelop the living. This is healthy land, though harsh. Star has never wanted to leave it.

Ruger will stay, she thinks, if there’s space for her and if Star really asks. Can’t be a merc forever; in her late twenties, Ruger’s getting old for it.

“We could grow coffee,” Ruger says wistfully. “Imagine. No more mixing it with dirt.”

“Not in the desert,” Star says. “Sorry to break it to you. Too hot, too dry. We’ve tried.”

“I’ll try harder. Plant in the shade, lots of water.”

“So we’ll need another borehole. Water purifiers, a proper firepit for roasting, maybe some kind of shelter. Someone will have to pick the beans.”

“Isn’t that why we’re adopting an orphan?”

“ _Ruger._ ”

“I know,” she says, chastised. “No child slave labour on this settlement. I will pick my own beans. So. When do we start?”

When indeed. It’s easy enough to say _could_ and _would;_ they’ve been doing it for years now. Would have kept doing it for years to come, if not for the medic and her promise. Star swallows hard. “You’re here, aren’t you?” she says. “Between work. Toshi’s back in a couple of weeks, she said she’d stop by and get my answer. Today is as good as any day. Apple can mind the shop while we scout and plan and…I need to talk to the neighbours. We need seeds and…a house, a radiation bunker, we need so many things-”

Ruger kisses her. There is coffee on her tongue, deep and dark, and sand in the corners of her lips. She smells of the long, hot road ahead of them, of work in the open air, of the sun beating down on sweating skin, wind-burnt and darker by the day. As always, it makes her heart pound, like hooves on the asphalt. Star leans in closer. Never quite close enough. She could kiss Ruger until her breath stopped, and it would never be enough.

She only realises her eyes have been closed when Ruger pulls away, touching her cheek with fingers roughened by reins and trigger guards. She has a lovely smile.

“Wait here,” she whispers. “I’m going to go tell the others they have a new boss for a few weeks.”

“Bossing around mercs,” Star whispers back. “Can’t wait. I bet I’m good at it.”

“You will be,” Ruger promises, and goes to tell the mercs they’ve been hired.

Leaning on the counter, Star sips Ruger’s dirt-free coffee and watches the sand billow by on the lonely desert road.


End file.
